Chapter VI - MENANDER AND HIS KINGDOM

Summary

Menander was the most famous of the Yavana kings, and his legend attests the impression he made upon the world about him; and a sketch must now be attempted of the kingdom of the man who for a little while had held Asoka's capital and whose conquests were exalted by a Greek historian even above those of Alexander. The deaths of Demetrius and Apollodotus and the return of Eucratides to Bactria left him master of the position in India, and thenceforth to his death he, the one man who had successfully resisted Eucratides, ruled the whole of the territory still remaining to the Greeks in that country, excluding the Paropamisadae; if he had not the royal title before (p. 167) he must have taken it, presumably by a vote of his army, when Demetrius was killed. The growth of his legend, and the establishment of his coinage in Barygaza, postulate for him a reign of reasonable length; at the same time the fact that his son, Strato I, was too young to rule alone when he died sets a definite limit to that length. He legitimised his rule by marrying Demetrius' daughter Agathocleia; the evidence that she was his queen seems conclusive. If cadets of the house of Euthydemus still survived, they must have accepted his rule as the only security against Eucratides and his line; he never had any civil war—at least in all his vast coinage no coin seems known which has been overstruck by anyone else or upon anyone else's money.

It is not possible to get an accurate chronology for Menander's reign, but one must approximate as nearly as possible.